Now that the Democrats have taken the Speaker’s gavel in the House, the media is filled with predictions from the pundit class as to what will happen. They don’t know any more than you and me but when you need to fill 24 hour cable news this is what passes for informed political commentary.

Here in California the Democrats have tightened their grip on state government to the point that Republicans hold no statewide offices and in the state legislature they barely have enough members to serve on committees.

The once dynamic Republican Party in California that gave us Ronald Reagan and regularly could be counted on to deliver its large haul of Electoral College votes to Republican presidential candidates, is on life support and in danger of becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs.

While the media write the obituaries on the California Republican Party, some Republicans are writing newspaper columns opining on what needs to be done to resuscitate the party and make it viable again.

Mind you the ones writing all these columns are the same ones who are responsible for its demise. That’s like having the autopsy performed by the same doctors who killed the patient.

They want to hire consultants to analyze the data from the last election and convene focus groups to find out why they lost and why their party is shrinking to the point they are outnumbered by voters who decline to state party preference.

And more importantly, they blame President Trump for all their electoral woes conveniently forgetting that their party’s political health has been declining long before Donald Trump arrived on the scene.

But politics isn’t just about analyzing data and folks ain’t lab rats to be viewed by consultants behind one-way glass in a focus group.

Politics is visceral and comes from the gut and the heart- something Democrats have known and been using effectively for years.

Trump tapped into that in a way they never have and never could. The Never Trump GOP consultants in California have been exposed as frauds that have been selling the same snake oil to the Republican faithful for years and losing elections.

California Republicans don’t stand for anything. They have no real message or messengers who can deliver it if there was one.

Led by Arnold Schwarzenegger, squishy Never Trump Republicans have come up with something called New Way California which is nothing more than a diet cola version of Democrats.

Arnold and his crew say Republicans need to be open to compromise.

What makes him think Democrats want to compromise? Why should they?

Democrat’s idea of compromise is like the old Soviet Union’s idea of compromising on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. “What’s mine is mine. What’s yours we’ll compromise.”

The New Way crowd says nothing about cutting back on California’s bloated government and the army of bureaucrats whose future pensions will eventually bankrupt the state.

And by the way when he was Governor what did Arnold do to help build a better Republican Party?

Not a damn thing. In fact he proved the only thing he cared about was saving his own skin for re-election in 2006 when he joined forces with Democrats and signed AB 32 sucking up to the climate change crowd.

He now travels the world in his private jet telling the rest of us to drive electric cars while he burns carbon by the ton.

The California Republican Party will never rise from the ashes by listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger and his band of elitists who think they know best.

Nor will they become relevant again by emulating the Republican Party in more conservative regions of the country.

Republicans must return to becoming a party of Westerners.

Since the days of the pioneers Westerners have traditionally distrusted big government like the kind California now has.

Republicans need to preach self-reliance as the key to opportunity.

Republicans need to understand that playing catch-up on identity politics and surrendering to the lazy tired analysis that “demographics is destiny” is no substitute for putting more money in everyone’s pocket.

Republicans need to remind folks that with rights comes responsibility and people are free to do as they please as long as it ain’t illegal and don’t scare the horses.

Republicans will need to articulate policies that will grow the base of middle class voters not simply replace the ones who are voting with their feet and leaving California.

Republicans will need to tell every hard working Californian regardless of race, creed, color or sexual orientation that there ain’t enough money to pay for all the grandiose plans of the Democrats.

Even if they taxed rich folks 100% there ain’t enough of them to pay for their schemes either.

Republicans should warn all Californians that eventually-when they have squeezed all they dare out of those same rich folks-Democrats will come for them and bleed them of all their hard earned money.

And since middle income voters believed they were exempt when Democrats said they were only going to soak the rich with tax hikes, nobody will be left to speak for them when their taxes are inevitably raised.

When Adolf Hitler was rising to power in Germany in the 1930s, Winston Churchill was in the political wilderness having lost his position in the government. He seemed out of touch to some and many wrote his political obituary-much like California Republicans today.

He returned to Parliament as a back bencher with no real power. And it was there Churchill became a lone voice warning his countrymen that Herr Hitler had bad intentions and they must be prepared for another war.

History shows that Churchill was right and when war did come, his country turned to him to lead them to victory.

California Republicans need to be like Churchill warning their fellow citizens of the coming fiscal storm.

At every opportunity when Democrats propose new spending they should ask where is the money coming from?

They should remind their fellow Californians that nothing is free no matter what the Democrats say.

And when the bills come due for the spendthrift ways of the Democrats at least they can say…We told you so.